


the entropy waltz

by Finnie



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Character Study, Other, The Year That Never Was
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-21 00:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12445716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Finnie/pseuds/Finnie
Summary: so burn for real now, master. burn where you have been standing, high in the sky omnipotent. burn. burn. burn. burn.burn.





	the entropy waltz

the world spins in small circles.

.

talk. beat the doctor. run. (you can't run anymore, master.) stand. burn. burn. _burn_. burn out. burn out how? in an explosion, maybe. in a conundrum of sparks and fire.

come on, master. come on. together?

together, yes? do you even know what these actions mean anymore? do you know what _you_ are?

so burn for real now, master. burn where you have been standing, high in the sky omnipotent. burn. burn. burn. burn.

burn.

.

 _prologue;_ wherein, you meet the master.

meet _the_ master.

he knows exactly when every single living thing is going to die, knows how to tug at the tender strings of death clocks. knows one thousand and one ways to steal breath, quietly. his bones thunder with the subtle beat of the world spinning, in small circles, too close to the beat of his heart. the wailing tunes of entropy, the raging tango of decay.

how does he know this?

the drums tell him so.

.

_welcome to the new world._

welcome to the new world, where broken bits of dalek float aimless through space along with wrecked scraps of time lord armor, to the realm of burning palaces, soundless, empty air still thick with the echo of culture, haunting reminders of the time war. silence has been spread throughout the universe, no nook or cranny spared.

welcome to the new world, where the skies were wiped anew, the air still bitter with the singed stench of fire. the rest of the universe continues living on as normal, pretends not to hear the whispers, the whispers of how the war ended, the whispers of who ended it. and the whispers of who ran.

welcome to the new world, where the ghosts from the aftermath of war linger, the war between two of the most monstrous races ever to walk the soil or cross the void. the daleks, brains sealed into tanks who cherish death, and the time lords, artificial, half-price divinity.

welcome to the new world, where the master elbows his way out of all that ash and debris, takes a deep breath and then screams his throat raw.

welcome to the new world, which he swears to tear at the seams.

_welcome to the new world, and we hope you enjoy your stay._

.

the master hears the doctor first over the phone. it's also the first time someone speaks gallifreyan to him in a long while, the language now dead, but off the doctor's lips oh-so-very alive.

the first time he sees him face to face, he knows that the doctor's a killer now. there's still a scent of smoke in his skin, deep, deep in the crinkles and folds of him. he also knows that something's changed between the two of them fundamentally after they crawled out of hell. the doctor and the master dealing with each other for real has been a long time coming, and they were both intent on stalling for as long as they could, and now it's here.

what to do, what to do?

so the master does what he's best at.  right?

unleashes hell. traps the doctor where he can't escape and makes him watch as he tramples the earth. it's been planned out since forever. there was never really anything that could've been done to stop it.

right?

.

oh, _come on,_ smile at your victory. the thought of the earth burning away to a crisp should prompt you to smile sweetly, just a tad maniacally, in a way that breaks the doctor's hearts a little. you should smile at the thought of him strung between you and humanity.

 _stars,_ master, why aren't you smiling? don't you know how to smile?

…

you really don't know how to smile?

smile? laugh? cry? frown? grow angry? shout. shout. at least shout, master. if you can't break him by smiling, then shout at him. have you become so much of a goner that you can't even shout? do anything but listen to the drums, _the drums, the neverendingdrumbeat?_

shout, master. shout.

you _really_ don't know how to shout?

.

then take these sounds, this terrible heartbeat, and hurl it into a fire. let them perish in a screaming heap, burn, burn, _burnburnburn_ into motionless dust. leave them behind, choose to destroy them.

so become silence now, master. become nothing, nothing, nothing.

.

the master rules for a month, rules for two. decimates the humans, decimates what's rest of them. keeps the doctor in his ship as an old, old ghost, switches him between a young man's body and an old man's – he can't decide which unsettles him more; seeing him as old as they both are, or seeing him stare out of this pretty shell with those ancient, ancient eyes.

the doctor just stares at him silently, days and nights. the master wants him to yell. he wants him to scream and tell him that he's disguisting. he wants a fight and closure and a fire. but the doctor just stares, and even as the master prevents him from speaking his eyes tell him what they both know – if he lets him loose, the doctor will help him. the doctor would still care. isn't it disguisting?

.

isn't it time to start caring about him back, again, then?

.

you still don't want to? hate the doctor tremendously? love him in the way that makes you want to burn him to ashes?

.

(you're utterly, utterly mad, master.)

.

hey.

hey, hey, hey. _hey, master_.

guess what. guess what,

take a guess.

you just won, and the drums didn't stop.

.

the master doesn't choose to bring time with him. he never chooses. time always follows. tick, tock. taptaptaptap.

_taptaptaptap._

**_taptaptaptap._ **

**taptaptaptap.**

so he watches the doctor. his time ticks too. he waits for the inevitable. the doctor always waits for something that's bound to happen. his life is constructed of waiting, and the master's of delivering.

 **taptaptaptap.** the doctor ages a second.

 **taptaptaptap.** the doctor remembers.

 **taptaptaptap**. the doctor looks at him.

 **taptaptaptap**. the master sneers.

time steals time and days muddle into a heap of expecting. humanity burns and runs and frets, and then bruns and runs and frets some more. the master doesn't give in, and the doctor stays silent.

**taptaptaptap.**

time steals time and earth is nearly no more. disguisting. _truly_ disguisting. the master doesn't give in, and the doctor stays silent.

**taptaptaptap.**

time steals time, and nearly a year has passed. so little for a time lord, so much for humanity. somewhere inbetween for the doctor, who stays silent as the master doesn't give in.

what happens next?

**taptaptapt –**

for a split second, the drumming stops: the doctor is in his head, shoving the drums out of the way. his presence is wary, on unsteady ground, testing, testing, showing him what he could do. he could extinguish the drums, he really could. or maybe he's pretending.

the master forcefully shoves him out.

**-ap.**

**taptaptaptap.**

**taptaptaptap.**

the doctor stares.

.

is this it? is this your once-in-a-lifetime defining moment? if the universe is really so disguisting, so pitiless, so vile and awful and bitter, will you _really_ burn it to the ground?

it's sad how you're going to spend like ten seconds contemplating that. and then ten minutes more. and then a decade, and another millenia, and, and.

and what are you even doing anymore? what are you going to do when all those humans are dead? when the doctor is dead too? will you laugh? cry? spill your brains? find something else to destroy?

you're such a pitiful thing, master.

but above all, you are mad, because you're reasoning with me, and i'm just a twisted version of the doctor you keep inside your head.

.

they've ran off together once, before. before their notorious departure, anyway, when they were still young young things. brilliant, vicious koschei, and sharp, stupid, lovely theta sigma. they made a list of six hundred thousand moments in the history of the universe they were going to see, and they stole time and left gallifrey.

it still haunts the master sometimes, what a force they were together. all of reality unraveling for them and them alone, bright and joyous as young gods standing above the universe. hushed, whispered, secret promises.

they had a promise made.

it lasted for a total of six weeks before they were caught and brought back. master borusa shouted and raged, then he cooled off, and then shouted and raged some more. and then they were let off like nothing happened, returned to their normal routine; koschei went to lectures and studied, theta sigma avoided lectures and copied koschei's test answers. but it was too late. they knew, they knew, they knew what they were together in a tardis on the top of the world.

surely it haunts the doctor too.

.

what are you thinking about, master?                 

i'll tell you what. you're wondering what it feels like to burn, burn like you did with all those emotions and fears and benevolence of yours ages ago.

shout, master. just shout.

shout, shout, shout, shout, smile.

you wonder if the doctor is reminiscing too, right now. if he's remembering what it felt like to run with you while you're sitting here and ruining almost everything that he loves. it would be so much like him. he is such a horror.

where did all your everything go? into fear, into perverted, hallow hatred, into these empty, seeking eyes of a blood-sniffing shark.

stars. _stars._ this grosses you out so much. you should just beat the doctor bloody. why do you even keep the trinkets he gives you? why did you keep the brooch? you should throw it into the void, crush it, crumble it with the sole of your shoe right before the doctor's eyes.

would it be quiet, then?

where did all your everything go? that you who played mind games witht he doctor and stole and hid and ran and planned and sought out immortality and lost and won and, and.

where'd master go, master?

the last time you saw him was in the trenches. he was a soldier who despised his own country. he had a brooch pinned to the lapel of his armor.

where'd he go?

broken.

you're a broken monster, master.

.

if he stares at the doctor long enough will he find out how he managed to light the flame?

the master's lit many too, but in the end, he thinks, you must be very brave to light a fire like that one, a fire to eat an entire chunk of the universe and wipe out both of those ugly races, yourself included.

because right now, the doctor doesn't look like there's much left of him anymore, either.

.

can you even remember why you love fire?

there was something in the flames that fed you. your desire to reverse the ever-growing nothingness in the universe. fire was _everything._ so, so alive.

right?

…

are you even listening to me?

…

_i am._

…

okay.

.

exactly three hundred and sixty five days later, the earth turns (a small circle.) and the doctor breaks free, with the sheer force of people believing in him and a handful of wires. there's probably some hideous symbolism in it, but the master doesn't care to find out.

the doctor looks terrible, great and terrible and wonderful, rebuilt and remade, and the earth quivers before him.

he reaches for the master and holds him tenderly.

the master doesn't want tenderness. he wants ruination.

and he holds his finger to the detonator. one click and the universe goes down in a fire.

isn't it what he's always been going for. isn't it? _isn't it?_ he'd just need ten more seconds to answer that question, and then ten minutes more, and a decade, and another millenia, and, and.

the doctor holds out his hand, and the master hands the detonator over.

.

do the drums stop?

_._

didn't think so.

.

 _what happens to me,_ the master asks, although he knows. time rolls backwards, lazily, and the universe is back to what it was, the humans restored, the equilibrium untouched.

but the master and the doctor _remember._ they always do, when everything else ends. when everything forgets, ages, dies, what's left is always rememberance. rememberance, rememberance, rotten rememberance.

what happens to him is, the doctor takes him along, the doctor gives him a second chance, it's the two of them in a tardis again.

(hushed, whispered promises of stars amidst an endless void)

what happens next is forgiveness, and the master wants none.

the bullet spares him of making that decision himself.

lucy saxon has always been so quiet. for all he's known her, for all he's showed her how everything was rotting, she's never cried once.

the bullet is quiet too. it echoes just a little as it wedges into his belly. tears in two, precisely and absolutely. the doctor screams. the master smiles.

.

destroy him. leave him. shout. (you can't shout anymore, master.) run. run. run. run places. run where, master? where he can't follow you, maybe. where you can't go together. where there are no drums. if you run there, he'll both hate you and love you for the rest of his life, and isn't that what you were trying to ensure all those years? _stars,_ the drums, the drums, the drums. leave them behind. choose not to stay.

so die for real now, master. burn. burn. burn.

burn.

 

****


End file.
